


Counterclockwise

by glitter_bitch



Category: Original Work
Genre: Confusion, Drowning, Existentialism, Horror, Isolation, Psychological Horror, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitter_bitch/pseuds/glitter_bitch
Summary: You stare at the rust colored spots on the shower wall, perfectly at eye level. You should have cleaned them up a long time ago...
Kudos: 2





	Counterclockwise

One quarter turn to the left and the showerhead starts up with a deep guttural gurgle. The water drips from above before intensifying into a sputtering stream, running down a slack face. You stare at the rust colored spots on the shower wall, perfectly at eye level. You should have cleaned them up a long time ago.

One quarter turn to the left and the water gets warmer. Doorknobs operate on the same principle. One quarter turn to the left, and whatever creaks are encased in the hinges can release themselves with a beleaguered sigh. One quarter turn to the left, and the bolt gives up it’s sham of protection from whatever lies beyond, until released with a slick metal click back into place.

The click is often the first thing you hear in the morning, a strange sound, as you live alone. Then you lift yourself from your bed, the rust colored spots dotting your sheets coming more into focus the further you get away from them, and shuffle your way to the whitewashed door frame. You never shut your door at night.

One quarter turn to the left. The steam isn’t refreshing. It’s muggy. Heavy. Boggish. Dampness fills your lungs, as you sigh out the note of a song, but only one. Your voice cracks from the nonuse of night.

Shampoo runs in rivulets down your body, the pale off-white foam pooling around your feet before rushing to vanish into the tarnished drain. The color reminds you of a different time. An egg-white omelette overlooking a still silent sea. The sand was tan, the sea a lighter tan, and the sky a lighter tan than that. The omelette had been cooked on a gas stove. Simple to operate. Light a match. One quarter turn to the left. Do not forget to roll up your sleeves. Do not forget to turn the dial back when you are finished.

The water is scalding, but the knob can still turn. You scratch an itch. Your wet nails fold almost backwards. They still manage to leave long red lines down your forearm

In modern art, pepsi-cola is used as a universal symbol for business, for corporatism, for meaningless materialism. One quarter turn to the left and the sputtering hiss alerts one to artificial, saccharine freshness. The hickory liquid appears black in large enough quantities.

The room is still choked with steam as you towel off. You can almost feel the condensation on your eyelashes, and the settling of water in your lungs. You drop the stained and spotted towel in the hamper on your way out the front door. Keys slide into ignition. One quarter turn to the left. A rumbling under your feet, not unlike pipes shaking in brick-red buildings.

The lot next to your house is empty, the rust-colored dust of the pit where a basement belongs hangs in the muggy air like beams from the sun. Like the uncanny stillness of water just leaving the shower head.

One quarter turn to the left and you should be facing your house again. In theory. The pit has stretched in the moments between blinks and all you can hear is the hiss of water falling toward stained ceramic floor. The hiss of freshly opened pepsi-cola. The pit is advancing on you- or you are advancing on it. Your surroundings blur and fade into a vast redness, splattered in shades. Amazing how few shades of difference there are between rust and tan.

A car door slams. You did not shut it. You drive alone. The pit is filling with the water pouring torrentially from the showerhead above. Your house has all but vanished, the only remaining structures a whitewashed door frame, glaring fiercely against the red of the surrounding desert, and a mess of pipe snaking upward, upward, mile after mile to the showerhead.

The water surrounds you now. You didn’t feel the earth fall out from under your feet. The currents are sluggish with the sheer amount of red silt being carried through the sea. You glance down at the crusted red under your fingernails as your head is submerged, the salty water filling what little space is left in your lungs.

You scramble for the knob, any knob. 

A quarter turn to the left. Rapture has many meanings.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been rejected by two different undergrad literary journals! Guess 'second person pov existentialist horror with themes of religious trauma' wasn't the genre they were going for!


End file.
